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No right to be idle : the invention of disability, 1840s-1930s / Sarah F. Rose

Catalog Data

Author:
Rose, Sarah F.  Search this
Physical description:
xiii, 382 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Type:
Books
History
Place:
United States
Date:
2017
19th century
20th century
Contents:
Her Mother Did Not Like to Have Her Learn to Work: Disability, Family, and the Spectrum of Productivity, 1840s-1870s -- He Had No Home but the County Poor House: Family Incapacity, Charity Policy, Wage Labor, and the Shift to Custodial Care, 1870s-1900s -- I Wish to Thank You for My Freedom: Paroling Feeble-Minded People into Farm and Domestic Work, 1900s-1930s -- We Do Not Prefer Cripples, but They Can Earn Full Wages: Mechanization, Efficiency, and the Quest for Interchangeable Workers, 1880s-1920s -- The Greatest Handicap Suffered by Crippled Workers: The Perverse Impact of Workmen's Compensation, 1900s-1930s -- Saving the Human Wreckage Cast on the Industrial Scrap Heap: Goodwill Industries and the Imperative of Efficiency, 1890s-1920s -- The Duty to Make Himself a Useful, Self-Supporting Citizen: Disabled Veterans and the Limits of Vocational Rehabilitation, 1910s-1920s
Summary:
"In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a major transformation was occurring in many spheres of society: people with every sort of disability were increasingly being marginalized, excluded, and incarcerated. Disabled but still productive factory workers were being fired, and developmentally disabled individuals who had previously contributed domestic or agricultural labor in homes or on farms were being sent to institutions and poorhouses. [The author] pinpoints the origins and ramifications of this sea-change in American society, exploring the ways that public policy removed the disabled from the category of "deserving" recipients of public assistance, transforming them into a group requiring rehabilitation in order to achieve "self-care" and "self-support." By tracing the experiences of advocates, program innovators, and disabled people caught up in this epochal transition, Rose ... integrates disability history and labor history to show how disabled people and their families were relegated to poverty and second-class economic and social citizenship, with vast consequences for debates about disability, poverty, and welfare in the century to come"-- Provided by publisher.
Topic:
People with disabilities--Government policy--History  Search this
People with disabilities--Public opinion--History  Search this
People with disabilities--Rehabilitation--History  Search this
People with disabilities--Employment--History  Search this
People with disabilities--Civil rights--History  Search this
People with disabilities--Legal status, laws, etc--History  Search this
Marginality, Social--History  Search this
Data Source:
Smithsonian Libraries
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:siris_sil_1102432